Clark Luthor's Adventures in Wonderland: Part 2, Mirror, Mirror
by legendarytobes
Summary: Clark begs Jor-El to send him to Earth 1 after a fight with Sullivan in order to get advice from at least a Tess. He doesn't expect to be getting advice from that Earth's Chloe Sullivan, not at all. Pairings mentioned: Earth 2 Clark Luthor/Chloe Sullivan, Earth 1 Chlark, and past Clark Luthor/Tess Luthor. Also, best to read part 1 first.


"You can let me go to the other Earth, can't you?" Clark Luthor said, as he paced the expanse of the Fortress.

That had been eating at him for the last two days. He was still on suspension from whatever the fuck he had with Sullivan. She wasn't expecting or, frankly, allowing him back to headquarters in New York City for another five days. He was seething. At first, he'd been hurt, but now he was just pissed. Who the Fuck did she think she was? He was Clark Luthor. Women had begged for him to take them home, _begged_. He'd had have of Hollywood on speed dial and the other half wasn't worth his time. Granted, he was the most wanted being on the planet. Fucking Oliver Queen. Fucking bastard who had spilled his secret and left him on the run, a bounty even now on his head because, after all, couldn't let the alien monster roam free to kill any longer, could we?

And, okay, to be fair, Clark had killed a lot of people.

Frankly, even with his savant math skills-like those had ever come in handy-even he wasn't sure how many people had met their maker because of him. He wished he could say it was just because Lionel had ordered it, that he was trying to make his father happy, but that wasn't true. Clark _liked_ killing people, or at least he had. At night, the screams he remembered and the begging kept him awake, but before, there'd been nothing more heady than the crunch of bones under his fingers, the look of terror frozen permanently and literally on a victim's face, the heat vision…

The goddamn heat vision.

He should have…maybe if he'd known…but that wasn't even true, either. He wasn't the same man he'd been. Hell, back then, he'd still been a punk kid himself. But his conversion on the road to Damascus hadn't happened yet. After meeting his counterpart from the other Earth, Clark Kent, the son of some hick farmers from town of all things, Luthor'd seen exactly what he could have been and everything he'd done before sickened him. But nothing made him more upset than what he'd done to Sullivan.

He hadn't known. She'd just been something Dad needed handled. She was a snoop, pushing too hard into ancient history land deals and his grandparents' deaths in a fire. She'd had to go so a blast of heat vision and her exploded house would have done the trick nicely.

Except Chloe was no more human than he was. She was something different, something very different. He'd been vaguely aware that, him aside, Lowell County was weird, that people whispered the town had been broken by the showers. There were people with abilities, mutated somehow by his planet. He hadn't known that much until Sullivan flat out told him, but he'd heard about Belle Reve just like anyone else, seen a few kids around doing things that they absolutely couldn't have if they were normal. Well, Sullivan had been altered more than most. The rocks had given her inhuman healing and she didn't seem capable of dying.

But the healing was far from perfect.

So when he thought he'd blown her to Hell, maybe he had. She'd been in pieces but her power had knitted her back together. She was bald now, a hideous mass of scars that marred almost all her features, and burns over large swaths of skin. Only her eyes told a different story. They shone like emeralds and Luthor wondered often who she could have been if he hadn't ruined her.

Twice over so far.

His planet had made her a freak and his heat vision and made her a monster.

But they were friends, damn it. Maybe she couldn't…but they didn't just patrol. They talked and had breakfast together and the crime rate had plummeted hard. He'd even helped her and J'onn with something bigger, some weird alien bullshit from Krypton too, this wave of phantoms. He wasn't some damn weapon she was babysitting. He wasn't.

And what was so wrong with him that she wouldn't want more?

He was attractive. Alien or not, that was true, and he'd pleased so many women and, frankly, men over the years. He could make it worth her while. She should be so lucky. Frankenstein's monster held more sex appeal than she did. Bitch.

But she'd shot him down, brutally, made it clear he was a tool for her to use in her patrols and mission and little more.

Well fuck Chloe Sullivan. Clark Luthor had never backed down from anything in his life, and he certainly wasn't going to lose her either. He just needed to figure out how to get her to understand. So, okay, a terribly planned date maybe wasn't the best idea, but he'd never had to try much before. He'd smile at a girl or they'd realize his surname and it would be a done deal. He didn't really know much about romance.

Tess would have known.

But his sister-slash-lover (don't be that surprised, he was a Luthor after all) had been dead over a year now, murdered by Lionel and he'd have loved to snap the old bastard's neck for that, to tear him piece from fucking piece, but he'd disappeared fighting Queen. For a while Clark thought it meant the archer had killed Lionel first, but sometimes he wasn't so sure. Still, the one thing he dreamed about constantly besides the crushing nightmares and guilt over his murders, was the relief it would be to have made his father pay for Tess, to have made him suffer the way Clark still did.

It was fucked up and Luthorian and wrong, but he'd loved Tess. Maybe he had taken her for granted too, not loved her as much as she'd loved him, but he'd loved her all the same. She was the one good thing about life as a Luthor, the one person who wasn't some psycho like Lex or Lionel. And she'd have known how to fix this. She'd always been smarter than him, more idealistic if such a thing could spring from their crazy gene pool (and his borrowed one in Clark's case).

But she was dead.

Except there was most definitely a Tess the next dimension over. He'd met her. He'd also almost dropped her out of window in his anger, but he'd spared her. Even before Clark Kent's sermons or Jor-El's training, he'd spared her because, honestly, any Tess was still worth letting live. She wasn't _her_ , wouldn't be her, but she'd help him. She'd know.

So that left him bargaining with his father who seemed to come from the fortune cookie school of wisdom and never answered anything directly. Often, he wondered if St. Clark the hero ever hated his Jor-El. If the machine wasn't literally the only family he had anywhere and, apparently, his only actual friend, thanks Sullivan, Clark would have abandoned it long ago.

Edicts didn't sit right with him.

He'd only had those from Lionel. He wasn't fond of having them all over again from Jor-El.

"You have to let me see her."

 _Lutessa Luthor is dead._

"Tess Mercer isn't. I want to go to the other Earth. What could it hurt? Clark's come here twice now, that one. I want help, father, isn't that what you're here for."

 _Your human entanglements matter very little to me._

"They matter to me. How can I stay good and fight for Justice if I have no one to ground me. I need Sullivan, and I need to get her to see me as anything else."

 _You were a killer. She is not wrong to see you as that._

"I'm not a killer now. I…please, I'll do anything. I'll _owe_ you anything, wouldn't you like that."

The Fortress did not answer for a while but the wind blew high and hard around him. Luthor knew that owing Jor-El and undeniable favor was a mistake. It might not be evil like his first father, but it wasn't necessarily good and it had a cold, mechanical view of the world. Humans were to be protected but not consorted with. So letting it have permission to ask him anything was a risk but, damn it, he needed Sullivan back in his life the right way.

And if he could just see any Tess. It was hollow now, would be, because his was dead, but if he could just say to her face what he should have so many times. He needed some peace somehow. He might not need to sleep, but he was beginning to see things even awake, and Clark suspected even he had limits, that the constant nightmares would ruin him.

"Father, please."

 _Any request, Kal-El_?

"Yes, anything and I won't even complain."

 _I will hold you to that. Do not make me sorry. You have an hour._

There was a flash and then Clark blinked, realizing that the Fortress had had the decency to beam him to the Watchtower, the headquarters in Metropolis for Kent's band of super friends. Tess worked there, was their main relay hub. She had to be there. Except when he turned to look toward the main control panel, she wasn't there. There was only a fairly short woman there with shoulder length blonde hair. God, with his luck, this one would be someone with active superpowers who'd think he was an intruder.

He'd already had Sullivan zap the ever loving shit out of him with her ability not two days ago. He didn't need to be tenderized further.

But he had an hour, so no time like the present.

"I want to see Tess."

"Well, Clark, you know that she has a patrol and aren't you at the mayor's ball and whoa," the woman's voice was lighter, happier. There was a flippancy there he'd never heard in Sullivan's voice, not once, but the pitch and resonance was the same. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd found this Chloe. When he saw those same beautiful green eyes staring back at him, Luthor knew it.

This Chloe was a beautiful as he'd known she would be. Hair to her shoulders, thick and lush in curls all over. Soft skin with the cutest speckling of moles, a playful smile, and full curves. A sharp pain stabbed at his chest. He'd robbed Sullivan of this, robbed her of the career she wanted, of a life above ground. How could he possibly make her like him?

Was he completely crazy?

No, scratch that, of course he was.

 _Between genius and insanity lies but just a slip of a stream, son, never forget that_.

"You're not Clark."

"Well, that's a matter of definition," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. His long sleeves were down so she hadn't seen the scar. How had she known?

"No, you're not him. First of all? Frankly? Clark wouldn't know how to dress himself if his life depended on it. He also never stands this tall, even with me, and, frankly, he'd know that tonight is Tess's night in the city so, frankly, you're the other one right?"

Chloe stood then and he gaped back at her. He hadn't noticed with her sitting down and her billowy top but she was clearly pregnant, a small bump on her abdomen. Activating his X-ray vision, it was easy to see that she was probably three or four months along.

"You're pregnant."

"Yeah, keep up, and if you're still good-cause Clark thought he talked you into it, sure-that's a plus. I really do not want to be threatened right now."

"I…okay…huh," he fumbled.

This Chloe laughed just as cuttingly as Sullivan did. "I take that back. You and My Clark are about as articulate."

"Your?"

She blushed and her fingers strayed over her stomach. "That's a long, complicated story."

"He was engaged to Lois last I figured. I don't know why. Lane's a pain in the ass and Tess was right there."

Chloe laughed again. "Yeah, I heard that part too. Tess was pretty traumatized the last time you came. I advise not trying to strangle her again. You won't get far."

"I'm not following."

"That's her story to tell," Chloe corrected. "You're not here to kill me or abduct me or hurt our operations are you?"

"No, but I have less than an hour to get what I need. Jor-El's put a timer on the trip."

"He would," she said, snorting. It was a level of derision only someone who had met the A.I. could reach.

"You've been there."

"Many times. He's an ass, but what's so important you need to see Tess. I'd recall her but there's a bank robbery."

"Huh, so Sis got her inner vigilante on lately. Interesting."

"Upgrades," Chloe quipped, her tone short. "You know, I was the original Watchtower here. If you have a problem, I can help you."

"I'd rather…" he stopped then. If he needed to make things up to Sullivan, wasn't this the best way to really pick her brain. Separate lives, clearly huge divergences, but who would know Sullivan's mind better than her own counterpart. After all, Kent had hit on truths that Clark had rather left buried even with being raised Podunk. "I don't know how to speak about this with you."

"Is it an apocalypse? I'm good at those."

"No."

She nodded and sat back down on her stool. "Okay, so it's personal. Oh, I get it! Chloe Sullivan's letter office is open for submissions. This might be sort of interesting. God knows I've answered Clark's all the time. So is this a Lois thing? Be honest, all that 'I hate Lane' is a smokescreen. Or, oh God, do you have a Lana?"

"Who?"

"Wow, that's bizarre. A world where you have no idea who Lana Lang is."

"Should I?"

"She was all my Clark thought about until three years ago, so yeah, probably."

"Wait, Lang? Like Potter's niece?"

"Yeah," Chloe said, wrinkling up her nose in thought and it was as sexy as it was on Sullivan. It was just that his Sullivan didn't believe him. "Huh, but that's what it is, right? Are you and, huh, your Tess having a fight?"

"My Tess died," Clark said, his voice low, but he kept it steady.

Chloe's eyes went wide and he was glad she stayed in her chair. If she tried to pat his hand or hug him, he'd have lost it. "How long?"

"Over a year. Lionel left a calling card while I was training."

"Are you taking our Tess back?"

"No, this isn't…I know she's dead," he said. "Believe me."

"Then if it's not Lois or Lana or even Tess, then I'm lost."

"It's a little awkward," he admitted, starting to pace.

Chloe whistled. "Huh, so the murdering psychopathic version likes me too. Interesting."

"Thanks, Sullivan, that makes me feel better. I happen to be reformed and I haven't killed anyone since Kent talked to me, and I'm not that crazy." He wasn't going to say he wasn't cracked. He was a Luthor after all, and the lack of sleep was playing with his mind and he knew it.

He expected her to dig in, to insult him more. Sullivan would have. Some days, outside of rage, it was hard to tell if that bitch had feelings at all.

Instead she surprised him by holding her hands up, palms flat. "It was rude of me. I'm sorry. That was a cheap shot. We've all done horrible things."

"I was Lionel's wet works from the time I was twelve. I doubt you've done what I have, Chloe."

She shrugged. "I never said my hands were clean. I've done things, horrible things for him." 

Clark frowned. She was more like his Sullivan than he'd have thought. "Does he know?"

"Yeah, and he's tried to rationalize it. Maybe some things weren't all my fault, I had this infection at the time playing with my head, but I've done other things. I've broken the law so many times and hidden dead bodies and, yeah, it was wrong of me to cut into you like that."

"Can you tell your other half that."

"So what's wrong in paradise that you thought, uh, sisterly advice could fix it?" she asked, letting her hands stray over her belly.

The next words out of his mouth were gone before he realized he'd let them out. "Is the baby's Queen's?"

She frowned. "What? We were talking about you."

"Yeah, but I was curious. The Green Arrow here was sort of falling apart without you. Even I was here long enough to see a headline about the VRA crap. He went prime time for you, that's something."

Chloe blanched. "It's not Ollie's. He's in Star City. We tried, didn't work."

"Whose then?" 

"That's not really…"

"Whose Chloe?"

She swallowed and shrugged. "Clark's, but it's not what you think."

Clark laughed, long and hard. What kind of fucked up world had he lucked into at his landing. If life were just a little different. If some poor as dirt farmer had found him first, then he'd have everything he wanted, be a genuine hero on top of that, not a dog on a leash, one that Sullivan clearly was waiting to put down if she had to. "Of course it's his. That makes so much perfect sense. God, I hate Kent. He has you and a superhero team and Tess is alive here and what a lucky bastard."

"Are you done there? You're sounding a bit cracked there, Ultraman."

"I'm definitely cracked. I shouldn't have come here. I…this is everything I could ever want and he doesn't deserve it."

"It's not what you think it is, by a long shot, not about me or Tess, actually, and Clark's aware he's fortunate now that Lionel never really had his hands on him, thank you. Now, can we focus on your problem? If you keep talking much more, I'm going to diagnose that the other me can't get past your sparkling personality."

"Shove it, Chloe."

"Uh-huh, you want to lay out your problems or not? You don't seem to have a lot of time."

"I just…how can it not be great here? Where I am? Everyone _knows_ and they're hunting me. Everyone in Metropolis has Kryptonite. I hide in New York, have an alias, and keep my head down. I help J'onn J'onz and my Chloe fight crime here and there, but we hide in the shadows because we have to. I'm the most wanted criminal on the fucking planet, and, yes, I know I deserve it. I've done terrible, awful things. I don't sleep anymore because of it, but yeah, this looks like goddamned Disneyland."

Chloe sighed and then she did stand and walked-she wasn't close to big enough to waddle-over to him and squeezed his forearm. He wished that just once his Sullivan had done that to him. He wished they could do _everything_ together. A red film covered his vision and he blinked it away, ashamed. He hadn't lost control like that since he was fifteen.

 _It was just a hooker son, don't be surprised. There's more where she came from. We'll work on this first. No one needs to know about your problems, and soon they won't be there. Leave the body, my team disposes of everything._

"What?" Chloe asked.

"Huh?"

"You were speaking. I…were you quoting someone?"

"Nothing, just something Dad used to say."

"Jesus, Clark, you didn't?"

"The heat vision took a while. It was expedient," he said, and he was channeling Lionel then and he knew it.

It was cruel and fucked up and wrong. It had taken ten women before he figured out how not to kill someone in bed. That was just outside his normal wet works. It was a good thing he was immortal because if aliens could go to Hell, he had a front row seat warmed up.

"What did Lionel do to you?"

"Everything," he said, then he blanched. "Well nothing prurient. Tess and I were the incest set in our crowd and we're not technically the same species. But he ordered, I obeyed, and I'm probably the biggest mass murderer my Earth's ever seen. Are you happy?" he bit back, and he was pacing again, feeling confused and awful under this Chloe's scrutiny. Maybe she'd yell at him too, call him a monster. Maybe she'd banish him. Maybe she should have.

When he looked back at her, she was tearing up and cupping her stomach. That was not what he'd expected. "Are you okay? You're not sick, right? The tadpole in there is still swimming away correctly, right?"

She nodded. "I just…I forget sometimes."

"What? That I'm a monster? I never do, no one else lets me forget it, least of all her."

"No, just how much could go wrong. Clark's made his mistakes, but what you could do, what _you_ did, it's terrifying. If I ever did it wrong, then the little one…" she said, trailing off.

"I doubt you're raising a future dictator of Earth. Hell, I still don't have that much ambition. I was stupid to come. I can see it in your face and it's the same as hers. I'm a monster, a rabid dog, right? I can't possibly have feelings."

"I didn't say that. Clearly you do and you're pretty damned worked up. Lionel's an abusive psychopath and you're what he made you. If you're making amends and saving people now then that's something, alright? It means you fought him back, Lex here never could. So, don't go. Just spell out what you need."

"And you'll tell me why it's so complicated?" he asked.

She hesitated then nodded. "Yes, as a show of trust."

He barked out a laugh. "You shouldn't do that."

"Trust you? Too late now. Don't be an idiot. You think we don't keep Kryptonite here? If I weren't pregnant, I might have pulled some on you by now, but I don't want to hurt the baby. Your show so far tells me that you're confused and, frankly, kind of an asshole, but I can trust you. So, my truth for yours. What's really wrong?"

"I was wet works for thirteen years, Chloe. I killed so many people that even _I_ don't remember all of them."

"I'm sorry he did that to you."

"I liked it."

"He made a twelve year old murder for him. How were you ever gonna learn the damn difference?"

 _Finish it, son. It's power and it's good. You eliminated everyone else, everyone I tell you, they're weak. It's just evolution._

He shook the memory away, the neck that hadn't snapped right, the man who didn't die right away but wheezed and suffocated slowly in his grasp. Fucking Lionel.

"There was a land deal, did you know that? My grandparents died in some weird circumstance and…"

"Lionel and Edge did it together here too for seed money."

"Sullivan found out and I was sent to clear up the problem. I didn't know. She told me after, told me about the extent of Lionel's insanity, but it was just another night, a name on a piece of paper." He let his eyes go red. "A little heat vision and problem solved."

Chloe was crying then, small tears trailing down her face, and he hated that he'd put them there. "And?"

"She didn't die. Do you have a power, Chloe?"

"Not anymore, it's gone. That awful infection burned it out."

"But you were immortal, weren't you?"

"I don't think so. I just could heal others and, okay, I woke up from a morgue drawer once but I don't think it's that big a deal."

"I think you're wrong. I don't know if it would ever come back, but my…no, not mine…Sullivan's powers are unlike anything I've ever seen." Chloe was crying harder then and he should stop, should just leave and wander Metropolis until Jor-El beamed him home. But he couldn't, not now. "She could heal then and her body stitched itself back together but it did it wrong. She's…I don't care. I think she's the sexiest woman I've ever known, but she's horribly deformed."

"How badly?"

"I didn't know you were blonde before today or that you had freckles at all. So many scars, so many burns. I ruined her, Chloe, and I didn't even realize it. And then we started working together it was because we could…"

"…save the world?" she added, sniffling.

"Maybe, or just do something with our abilities. They cost us so much in different ways. There has to be a reason I'm like this, that I'm here, and it wasn't to kill for the rich and vengeful, no." 

"And?"

"She hates me. I thought maybe we could be friends, okay, I thought we could be a lot more than that and I set up this date and it was dumb but I wanted her to understand and she hates me, Chloe, said I'd made her a monster too and she's not wrong."

"And she's spent a decade since you burned her what? Helping people?"

"Yeah, she's never killed anyone. She breaks bones like a pro." And he knew his eyes were amber. God, he was such a freak.

Chloe nodded and rubbed at her eyes. "I see."

"Really because I don't."

Chloe snorted. "If we're anything alike, and I figure we are because, frankly, you're as emotional as my Clark. The point is, she probably fell for you the moment she saw you, at least physically. I bet she's been fighting it the better part of a year, and then you…Luthor, come on. I always feel less than with Clark because I'm _not_ gorgeous like Lois or ethereally lovely like Lana."

"Ethereal, huh? So you were a writer, weren't you?"

"Definitely. I write for the Planet. The point is I never feel like I…I don't deserve him. You're a killer and we know this, but you're attractive."

"Thanks?"

"If she's as bad off as you say she is, it's less about what you stole and more about how she feels about herself, trust me."

"How do I fix that? She won't even let me go back to New York."

Chloe snorted. "Like an order from me would ever stop you."

"No, but she…if you'd seen her eyes, Chloe, she _hates_ me."

"You can only hate someone you love. Trust me, Clark and I have been terrible to each other sometimes, and I loved him even then. I'd apologize and go from there."

"I don't think she'll believe me."

"Then, Luthor, how can you show her?" she said, shrugging. "That's where I'd start."

"Thank you. I…now your truth. How is Clark not deliriously happy? Hell how aren't you?"

"Because it wasn't supposed to happen. We were both drugged by magic." 

Clark doubled over at that. "Magic, right, sure. Aliens and mutants I can buy. Magic? Come the fuck on."

"You'll learn," she said, her tone cold. "Once everything with Darkseid cleared and I realized I was pregnant, well, my tests didn't come back normal and we figured it out. Lois moved to another paper and Ollie and I were already on the outs anyway, over stuff he'd done in our latest apocalypse I couldn't forgive, lies he'd told. I just…Clark's bereft because of Lois leaving and this is a big mistake so, yeah, it's not Disneyland ever, Luthor. Don't be naïve."

"I…"

"Yeah, and Tess's story is probably worse."

"She's alive, how is that worse than being cold and gone?"

"That's not mine to tell, if you ever come back here…" she stopped and rushed to the far desk by the infirmary doors. Rummaging through it, she pulled out the device he'd used originally to switch with Kent. It resembled a Kaleidoscope, of all ridiculous things. She handed it to him and, Luthor would never know what moved him, but he reached out and touched her stomach at the child he would never have. He had no doubt in his mind that even if the impossible came to be that, as lethal as Sullivan could be, she could never carry a child. Besides she didn't want to talk to him, let alone fuck him. "Here, any time you like. I…my Clark and I aren't talking outside of business, and I'm used to that, it is what it is, but this was nice. It was odd as Hell, but it was nice."

"No one thinks I'm nice," he said, feigning his shock. "I'm a Luthor, and we're all cold-hearted snakes, Miss Sullivan."

Chloe shook her head. "No, you're not. If I believed that, I never would have let Tess be Watchtower. Conner wouldn't be a Titan."

"Who?"

"Oh, we'll get there some day. I don't believe that either. You choose who you want to be. You're a grown-up now and Lionel's gone. You keep doing the good things and, well, did you know I was Catholic."

"Was?"

"I was never a seminary girl. Hated penguins and plaid. Still, if I remember catechism right you get grace as a gift. You can't even your ledger. It's not possible, but maybe, I dunno, maybe you don't have to add to it, okay?"

"I wouldn't. She'd hate it if I did."

"Tess?"

"Nah, she wasn't that moral. I mean Sullivan. She'd kill me if I fell off the wagon and, frankly, if I did, I'd let her. I just…she's the most amazing person I've ever met and I've met a lot."

Chloe sniffled. "I miss that faith."

He sighed and patted her stomach once more. "This? Whether magic exists or not."

"Oh it's real." 

"Sure, right, get me a blue fairy. My point is that if there are two universes then…"

"…there are an infinite number, yeah, I figured," she said.

He liked that rhythm, knew he and Sullivan had it on a case. "Yes, and I wonder in how many of them, this happened. I think it means a whole damn lot, Chloe, so I'll work on mine if you work on yours, deal?"

"You're the evil one. Why do you care?"

"Because in some places, I'm a monster, and in some places he's probably with Lane forever, and others maybe you're already dead. There should be one place where it goes well. You owe it to more than just the tadpole for that."

Chloe started to say something, but that was when his world spun and he found himself standing in the Fortress, his key back to the other Earth clutched tightly in his hands and his head spinning with new information.

There had to be a way to show Sullivan he meant it, and maybe it was time he reached out to what contacts he had left, what strings he could pull. He had an idea brewing, and it was so very crazy, but then again, so was he.


End file.
